Today is Luca’s birthday so, last night we had the opportunity to say bye to the people that are still here.
My flight is scheduled for tomorrow at 6h50… Nice, isn’t it? I’ll be on time to eat the breakfast in Lisbon while enjoying its typical 15ºC in the morning.
It’s time to pack my stuff and say: “I’ll be back!”
P.S.: I miss Cph already… :\
This post was written listening to: Cat Faces – Ugly Casanova
These last days people’s main concern has been enjoying their few remaining days with all their new Cph friends. It’s impressive the number of facebook events titled as “********’s last party” or “I can’t believe I’m already leaving”.
Well, I feel lucky and, at the same time, I feel that a part of me will leave too because even staying here for one more semester, there will be people that I spent my day-by-day with, that will leave to their home-countries. And, how to explain this feeling? It’s hard, obviously, because the biggest part of these people that I knew in the very beginning of this adventure, probably, I won’t see ever again. I hope I’m wrong, but I know already how things work, and it’s supposed to be just like this. Since I decided to come abroad for one year that I was expecting this situation already. It was just a matter of how deep relationships built with other people could be.
Ok, enough of this sad subject… Let me give you a glimpse of my last week…
Spanish dinner plus Invisible Friend at DIKU: Yes, I spend more time eating at DIKU than attending to classes. It’s true, I’m guilty, but it’s not my fault, having just 4 weekly hours of lectures. So, as a true gentleman that I am, I offered my services to help María and Irene cooking the dinner at María’s place. Lets say that I became an expert doing tortillas, despite of the constant criticism about the way I cut onions or the way I tend to ignore the presence of washing-machines and continue washing dishes and other dirty things. This time we were cooking for 20 people. I don’t know why, but each dinner has a higher number of attendants than the previous one. I told them already: “I won’t cook for 50 people again”. I’ll change my mind, for sure.
Back to the dinner… Everything was done and it was time to go to DIKU… I never carried so much food while riding my bike. I could describe myself as a tortilla deliverer. We arrived there some minutes later, and some minutes after the scheduled time so, we were late but even though, there were no one but Zé, preparing the dessert (more details about this later XD). People started arriving and “surprise, surprise!”: in a matter of minutes, there were almost 30 people waiting for something to eat… XD The cooks started to panic and in a moment of cold blood, I started running to a nearest convenience store to buy some more stuff… Why am I telling this? Just to reach this fantastic part… When I was going back to DIKU, sprinting on my bike, I started hearing some police sirenes, horns and tires braking. Some seconds later I was witnessing a real persuit. 1 car running away from about 6 police cars, police cars making high-velocity u-turns to persuit the run-away car, the smell of burnt rubber in the air, the persuited car crossing red-lights and avoiding the other cars… It was completely insane… I arrived at DIKU with a new story to tell…
At the end, it was dessert time… Wout’s friends (about 10 guys) baked a dutch recipe (they came from a trip to Netherlands) and Zè tried to make Leite Creme… unsuccessfuly… Tasted good, but the Creme part wasn’t there… Just the Leite one.
It was time for the Invisible Friend. This was María’s idea… We should buy a present for a friend assigned to us without his/her acknowledging. At the end, we should guess who was our invisible friend. Coincidence or not, Zé’s invisible friend was me… Things that were offered: (fucking) wall-clock, mug-heater, weed/oreganos, bottle of beer, vibrator, football, whisky cantil, kama-sutra, socks, backgammon, facebook status badges, orgasmatron, etc. And that was it. We were about to go somewhere else to end the night. Destination: CSS! On our way there, I had the oportunity to congratulate María for her 24th anniversary! The rest of the night was just like that… Partying!
Yesterday, we were supposed to meet María and Irene at Irene’s place to their birthday party (today Irene completes 22), and so we did. After watching Barcelona winning 2-0 agains Real Madrid, we drank some beers, played some table-soccer (don’t need to say that the portuguese duo ruled it all) and then, we should do a thing that we didn’t for ages: going to THE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE!
Everything happened there: girls touching each-others breasts, people discussing ciggarette pack’s sexual life and related deceases, a girl trying to go inside The Moose but using the wrong door, people asking police officers for an hitchhike, people (actually it was me) answering in danish (not really) to a danish guy that was asking for something,… Just like Manu said: The Moose is just like Pandora’s Box… “We never know what to expect…”
Tomorrow: ice-skating at Kongens Nytorv!!! Lets see if I get back in Portugal in one piece.
The title says it all. Today was the day I cut my hair for the first time here in Cph. Somehow traumatized by the quantity of kroners some people I know gave for a clip (yeah, look at me saying some words in danish!), I didn’t have to work too hard to find a quite not-so-expensive hair-cut… So, if you live somewhere near Frederiksberg or Vesterport Station, I recomend you this one….. that I can’t remember the name… (It’s useless… I can’t trust my own memory.) It was 120kr, that I consider reasonably cheap for a not-so-stylish cut, but even dough, a good cut…
Unexpectedly, the sun showed all its light today and took Laura to send me a message on Facebook, calling me for some ice-skating. I couldn’t refuse. She was about to skate for the very first time. For me, it wasn’t that new, because I usually skate with roller-blades, but I knew that it could be slightly different. And actually, it is. I don’t know if it was because of the blades that weren’t that sharp, or if it’s because I’m not used to that lack of friction… Another thing that left me a bit uncomfortable was the lack of a rear rubber-break (if you know a roller-blade, you know what I’m talking about). Even with all these differences, I kept my bottom completely dry without a single fall. Obviously, I taught Laura some techniques and she learnt pretty fast. At the end she could skate without any help. Mission Accomplished!
I enjoyed it so much that I’m considering buying a pair of ice-skates to practice a bit more. I think that if I continue going there paying 45kr each time, I spend more money than owning a pair and going there whenever I like. Lets see…
The day that I expected for months finally arrived.
Some weeks ago I promised to cook a typical portuguese dish for my friends here in Cph. And so I did, after a dozen of uncertainties and postpones… The recipe: Bacalhau à Brás (capital letters because it deserves respect). If you noticed that bacalhau is cod and you’re asking yourself where the hell did I find cod in a place where the only fish is sold in Hvide Lam and it’s probably imported from Portugal (portuguese sardines), the answer is: my girlfriend helped. “But wait! She was with you long time ago! The fish was probably rotten, when you cooked it!” Sorry for disappointing you, but it wasn’t. Even smelling a bit bad when I left it on water for 3 days (special attention to my landlady that had the good idea of putting the bowl next to the window), the result couldn’t be better. But I’ll give the details later…
Priorly, and to avoid last-hour uncertainties about who I could expect for the dinner, I invited a bunch of people (3 french, 3 spanish, 1 swedish, 3 belgians and 2 inevitable portuguese, counting with me). Using other words, a record concerning the maximum number of people I cooked for. The last time I cooked for so many people was the so called “The Pasta Incident”, where I fatally cooked for more than 50 people, when there were just 9. Fortunately, I learn with my mistakes… sometimes…
So, the problems started right after: people will be hungry after the dinner because there is no cod for so many people. Plan B: I had to fill their bellies with something… AH HA!!! Salad!!!! Problem solved… I just had to be at the venue (DIKU) a couple of hours before to prepare everything, since Zé would help me. I thought… He arrived later than everybody else, but since he was responsible for doing the dessert, I didn’t mind… Some hours later, after some hard work (my hand still hurts… peeling potatoes sucks) and after the assistance of the people that were arriving (credits to Carido, The Seated-Down-Frier; María and Irene, The Potato Peelers), I could consider the dinner done.
The dinner went quite well and the expectations about it were completly achieved. IMHO, it was the best Bacalhau à Brás that I cooked ever… No, really… This was my first one, done all by my hands, and sincerelly, I’m amazed with myself. And what about the dessert? Well, Zé promised Pastéis de Nata… Even Wout, a belgian (that went to Portugal already), could realise that there wasn’t a single Pastel de Nata on the table. As an expert, I could say he was totally right. So, it was time to give a name to those little cakes: Pastéis de Copenhaga. Don’t you even try to use this name for other purposes… I already own the rights over it.
This night ended with some nice talks and some cans of beer. Obviously, I don’t need to say that Irene kept all the cans. It’s unbelivable, the money she makes with it…
At the beginning of this week, María and I scheduled an afternoon to spend in Tivoli, since a couple of friends of her were here to visit her. The day arrived and we had to postpone it: it was snowing. So, friday came and, even with the damn cold and a threatening sky telling us we should expect some rain showers, we went.
What to say about the Tivoli? It’s a really nice place. A bit expensive, obviously, but it’s a place where we can unleash the kid that lives inside us and we tend to ignore it, day-by-day. The attractions are more than a lot, for every kind of ages and heart conditions. After a couple of hours walking around the place and enjoying the Christmas decoration, it was time to accelerate our cardiac rhythm…
The Star Flyer: This year Tivoli presents the world’s tallest carousel. The Star Flyer is 80 metres tall, and if you dare try it, we guarantee a terrific flight with an unrivalled view of Copenhagen.
We were 3: María, Irene and me. The seats are for 2 people only so, I didn’t mind to go alone (I regret it so much!). When it started spinning around at high velocity at the middle of the tower and after realizing that we would still go upper, and looking at my hands grabbing those thin chains, I thought that I was done on that moment. After reaching the top of it, I couldn’t see more than flashes of lights that I suppose were Copenhagen spinning at 70km/h, 80m bellow my feet. But it wasn’t the worst part. Imagine all this and the wind constantly turning my seat to the back and to the front, because it was just like there was nobody there, seating on that chair (58kg aren’t anything comparing to the maximum capacity of those chains, even being thin as they were). Well, I think the ride was a little more than 1 minute, but it looked like half-an-hour, for me. Oh, just a curiosity: I’m afraid of heights… One more thing: I cried because of the wind… It’s always happening to me, even when I’m riding my bike, ok?
The Demon: The Demon is on the loose in Tivoli. The wildest ride in town, measuring more than 20 metres in height with three of the coolest loops!
This one was easy and funny. The photos that were taken automatically can prove it: I was smilling like a mad man. Actually, I think everybody were, at the same time they were screaming so, I reached a conclusion: people love to laugh at death. By the way: don’t you ever ask how many seat belts someone else have and next, tell him/her that there’s another one that he/she is missing. If you do this 5 seconds before a roller-coaster starts moving, it can be traumatizing. You almost caught me, Irene! About the roller-coaster itself, it gives us a sense of velocity that’s hard to describe and at some particular seconds, looks like you’re falling into a deep hole. The loops are easy to handle because you go so fast that the centript force, combined with the gravitational force and the velocity, glues your bottom to the seat quite well.
And Tivoli was done.
It was time to go to a concert: The Whip, at Loppen. I met Zé at the centre of the city and, under heavy rain, we rode to Christiania. And there was a problem: where the hell was the Loppen? We wandered around in Christiania looking for the damn place when finally I had to ask someone. Well, the guy wasn’t that precise so we walked a bit more than necessary around the place, but finally we found it. It’s a really nice place for concerts and it’s a truly intimate place.
The first band was a danish one, called Altmodisch:
…and the headliner, as I said before, The Whip. Here it’s their single “Trash”:
The first band was somehow weird because they don’t fit the same genre as The Whip. Altmodisch is a band that centres itself in electronic sounds with just little pieces of vocals, sometimes electronic ones too, and a low instrument component. Sometimes it reminded me of Placebo or Massive Attack. At the end, a guy from the band came to us and asked if where interested about buying their EP. The price was our choice. They were influenced by Radiohead, on this…
The Whip was what I was expecting: a powerful band on stage with a tight connection with the audience. Ok, the venue helped a lot, because the stage was at the same level as us, and there was nothing between the crowd and the band. Definitely, a must see.
After this, we went home… and started the next chapter of this day (I told you… everything happened to me on this day).
Somewhere at Gammel Kongevej, I noticed that something was wrong with my bike… I could feel every bump of the bike way… Well, more than usually. I ignored it. When I got home to park my bike, I realized that the damn rear tire was flat!!! Don’t have to say the first thing I had to do today. Actually, I was expecting a really expensive fixing, but no… I just had to pay 50kr to get the tube fixed. Nice! They won a customer… Well, I hope I don’t need to go there again for the next months…
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